This is, of course, all about last week’s move by the Board of Supervisors to put a measure on the November ballot, asking voters to approve a hike in the minimum wage to $15. Currently San Francisco has the highest minimum wage in the nation, $10.74/hour. A hike to $15, rolled out over several years, would match Seattle’s approval of the same wage earlier this year.

As restaurant insiders know, what’s really at issue is the so-called tip credit, which would allow employers of tipped workers to reclaim the difference between their base wages and earned tips. Per Knight:

California is one of a handful of states that doesn’t allow tip credits, but San Francisco legally could have crafted a minimum-wage proposal in which tipped employees would receive just the state’s lower minimum wage plus tips.

Hence the sentiments of Ben Bleiman, who owns Bullitt, Tonic, Wild Hare and several other bars, and told her: “It really feels like the city is coming after us.”

He and other bar owners formed the San Francisco Bar Owners Alliance, which along with the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, is pushing for a tip-credit solution. According to Knight, that isn’t likely in the offing.

And what’s in the offing for diners? GGRA executive director Gwyneth Borden predicted “higher prices, fewer staffers in favor of touch-screen devices to order and pay, and increased surcharges on diners’ bills to comply with the city mandates” — namely for health care and sick leave.

Not everyone buys this logic. The GGRA has “cried wolf before,” Supervisor David Campos told The Chronicle, and not a single supervisor sided with their argument.

In related news: McDonald’s is planning an incubator for the Mid-Market corridor, per Techcrunch — less to offer fries with that than to explore digital payments and other shiny Silicon Valleyish things. Regardless of City Hall’s wage battles, we can only assume that their engineers will be paid above the company average.